Never That Simple
by sammysmissingshoe
Summary: The boys come across a young hunter, and they work together on the seemingly easy case. But it's never that simple. Takes place Mid-Season 3 due to mentions of Dean's deal. No spoilers, pretty sure anyway...
1. A New Case, New Face

There was the familiar sound of the Impala cruising down the road accompanied by Dean's long outdated rock music.

"Dean, I think I found us a job in town." Sam spoke loudly, trying to overcome the blasts of the radio. Dean absent mindedly tapped his hands on the wheel, oblivious to Sam.

"Dean." Sam tried again. "Dean!" Dean had heard him the second time, but ignored Sam, because that's what big brothers do.

Sam reached over and turned off the radio, because that's what little brothers do.

"Hey! I was listening to that!" Dean said in his mock hurt voice.

"Yeah well, while you were too busy listening to that, I was trying to tell you I think I got us a case." Sam stated plainly.

"What do you got?" Dean asked.

"A few weeks back, a girl was killed in a car accident."

"That doesn't sound like our kind of thing." Dean said.

"Let me finish, Dean." Sam snapped rather harshly. "Then about three days ago, her whole family was found in their house sort of… missing."

"What do you mean 'they found them, but they were missing'?" Dean asked.

Sam pushed his fingers through his hair uncomfortably.

"Well, uh, they only found, parts of them." Sam said rather disgusted.

Dean scrunched up his face. "Well. That's unfortunate." Sam rolled his eyes at his brother's lack of sympathy. Dean ignored the gesture and questioned, "So, what are we thinking, family curse or something?"

Sam stared down at the newspaper he had been reading from. "Could be." Sam huffed. "I mean, girl dies in an accident, next week her family ends up getting ganked in their own house? That's something right?"

Dean nodded. "Or the girl could have turned into a spirit and now she's taking it out on her family."

Sam considered the possibility. "We should talk to her friends and neighbors and see if they can think of any reason she might have to come back."

Dean shook his head in thought. "Spirits are weird, man. I mean they finally get out of this crap hole of a world, but then they come back just to mess with some people that screwed with them? Once I die, I ain't gonna come back."

Sam looked down as he thought of the idea of his brother being dead. Dean noticed Sam's sudden change of mood. He nudged Sam's side as he tried to reassure him "Hey don't worry Sammy, I'll make sure to stick around for a while longer, before I move on to god-knows where."

Sam chuckled lightly and his lip curved up in a small smile, as brief as it was.

Dean stepped on the gas, and the car roared as they ventured to their next job.

* * *

Sam hunched over by the door as Dean stood in front him, trying to disguise the fact that Sam was picking the lock. The police tape still littered the door, but "keep out" signs never really bothered the Winchesters.

There was small click as the lock was picked open and Sam turned the knob, and stepped inside.

Blood. Blood was everywhere. Red-stained handprints were scattered all the way down the hallway, and up the stairs and across the wall.

Sam made a disgusted face. Dean walked in and took in his surroundings. He scowled. "Ew." Sam shot him a look. "So insensitive" Sam thought.

Dean didn't even register Sam's glare. "Alright, let's start checking the house for anything the cops might have missed. You take the main floor, I'll check upstairs." Sam nodded and set off to look for clues.

Dean headed up the stairs, following the red trail. He checked every room and found nothing but more blood stains.

"Hey Dean, I think I got something!" He heard Sam call from below. He tromped down the stairs, not caring to be quiet. He found Sam crouched by a heating duct on the floor. Sam motioned Dean to come over with a flick of his head.

"Check out what I found in the vent." He called as he shone his flashlight in the vent.

Dean bent over and peered inside. There was a clump of hair still attached to part of a scalp, of course, coated in blood.

"Guess the cops missed this by a hair." Dean chuckled at his own joke. Sam huffed out an annoyed breath.

"Dean, a family was mauled to death in their own house; can you have a little decency?" Sam snapped.

"Hey, calm down, I'm just trying to lighten the mood!" Dean protested as he lifted his hands.

Sam rolled his eyes. "You don't have to try and lighten the-"He was cut off by the sound of a gun clicking behind his head. He gulped.

"Stand up, slowly." The voice instructed. Sam shot Dean a wary glance. He knows Dean well enough to know that he wouldn't want to do as the voice told. Normally he would be slightly amused by Dean's hardheadedness, but seeing as how the gun was at the back of his own head, it was less amusing than usual. They both began to stand.

"Good. Now turn around." As they complied, they were both surprised by who wielder of the gun was. It was a girl no older than 16. Her short blonde hair covered her forehead in a wisp of bangs. Her hair was long enough to cover the back of her head, but didn't go past her neck. She wore glasses and hidden behind the lenses were fierce blue eyes fixed on both brothers. When she opened her mouth to speak again, the hunters noticed she had braces.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" She demanded.

Dean stared at the gun. "You know we could probably answer without a gun being pointed at us." A half smile made a brief appearance on her lips.

"Yeah, but this just makes sure that you'll tell the truth." She retorted.

"How would you be able to tell if I'm lying?"

"Here's an idea. Lie, and see if I can tell the difference. If I can, I'll shoot you in the face." She said in an almost eager tone. Sam finally spoke up, not wanting his brother to get himself shot because he can't watch his own mouth.

"I'm Sam, and that's my brother Dean." He spoke as much truth as necessary. She suddenly lifted an eyebrow in disbelief.

"As in, Winchester Sam and Dean?" She asked doubtfully.

Sam unknowingly mocked her gesture and raised his eyebrows.

"How do you know who we are?" Sam questioned.

"Every hunter knows who you guys are. Well, I do anyways."

Now Dean widened his eyes. "You're a hunter?"

She huffed air out of her tiny nose and rolled her eyes. "That wasn't implied?" She asked like a parent scolding her child. Dean noticed the tone and glared at her. No one treats Dean Winchester like a kid.

"Who are you?" He spat, already not liking her.

She smiled again and started to put the gun into the waistband of her camouflage patterned jeans.

"Name's Alex. I assume you're here for the same reason I am." Dean took his chance to show off his sass.

"Well considering how we're in the same house, it's probably a safe assumption." Alex frowned at him and he produced a mock smile. She angrily sighed.

"Either way, I was here first and I don't need anyone holding me back, so you boys can find yourself another case."

"What do you mean _you_ were here first? I seem to recall you walking in on us-"Dean started to argue but Sam stopped him midsentence.

"Aren't you a little young to be hunting? And couldn't your age get in the way?" Sam asked with sincerity.

Alex eyed him up and down. "Doesn't all that hair get in the way?" She countered.

Sam opened his mouth to respond, but he closed it just as fast. He didn't really know how to answer that. Dean snorted at him.

"Besides, my age just makes people less suspicious of me. Shifters sure get surprised when a fifteen year old girl pulls a silver dagger on them." She explained with a cocky grin. Dean tilted his head to the side in agreement.

"Touché". He said. "You still shouldn't be hunting. How'd you get sucked up into all this?"

Alex shot him a dirty look. "Haven't you been around enough hunters to know that that's one question you should never ask if you don't want to piss them off? Every hunter's got a sob story, I'm sure you do, but I have the decency not to ask. Unless you'd like to relive the horrors that probably got you into this hell of a life."

Sam looked down at the floor. True Dean and he shared a similar "sob story" so to speak, but Sam's was more personal than Dean could ever understand. Dean was only four when he lost his mother, but when Sam had lost Jessica, it was the one person he loved most. He shook his head, putting the memory at the back of his mind.

Dean spoke up. "We lost our mother in a house fire that was caused by a demon. Our Dad used to drag us around trying to find the damn thing. He'd wasted nearly twenty years of his life. And now he's dead, and he never got his revenge." Dean's voice was harsh, but was secretly a mask of the pain that it caused him.

Alex sighed heavily. "I know how you feel. I lost my mom too, but it was just some shifter. It made itself look like my dad and when I walked in on him-it-, it ran off. My dad had been downstairs not two seconds before, so I knew it wasn't him. My father swore vengeance against it, but even when he got it, he just kept fighting. Up until the day he died."

"What happened to him?" Sam asked.

She rolled her slightly watering eyes. "What do you think happened? The same thing that's gonna happen to every hunter out there someday. He got killed by some supernatural son of a bitch and now I have no one left. This is the only life I've ever known, and it's the only thing I'm good at." She flicked her head and the bangs slowly fell back into place just over her eyes. "So if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to it."

Dean was never too fond of the idea of being around other hunters, but he didn't like seeing kids get sucked into the life of a hunter.

"Look, normally I wouldn't do this, mostly cause I'm the best out there" Sam rolled his eyes at Dean's arrogance for the thousandth time that day. "But we'd like to help you. If we work together on this, it can be done a hell of a lot quicker. What do you say?"

Her mouth twitched slightly in a sad, yet grateful smile. "Yeah, I'd like that."


	2. Explanation and Seperation

"So, do you have any ideas about what it might be?" Sam asked as they entered their hotel room. Alex nodded her head.

"I figured that with all the, uh, mess that it could either be a demon or a ghoul."

Sam scrunched his face at the thought of ghouls. They had never come across one before, not like they were complaining though. Dean had the same thought and added,

"We didn't find sulfur at the house, so that narrows it down pretty well." He shook his head and made a disgusted noise. "Ghouls are nasty, man. Feeding off the dead, then mutating into the last corpse they stuffed down. That's just sick. I mean eating people's one thing, but then they're stuck looking like a dead guy. We'd probably be doing it a favor by killing it."

"Some favor." Alex muttered under her breath.

"What'd you say?" Sam trying to understand what she just said.

"Well, it wouldn't be around to appreciate the gesture now would it?" Alex teased. Sam nodded, but kept his eyes fixed on her cautiously. She reminded him of someone.

Dean didn't see his brother's puzzled face and huffed out a laugh at Alex's joke. She may have dissed him earlier, but anyone that makes fun of Sam's hair is okay in his book.

Dean regained his focus and tried to make sense of the case. "So how do you think the dead girl fits into this?"

Alex shook her head in agreement. "I thought about that too. Maybe the ghoul found the girl's body, and , you know, and after it became her, maybe she went back to the family."

"Why would it do that?" Dean questioned.

"When you lose someone, you'll give anything to get them back. And if the one you loved most walked through your door, you'd probably be pretty happy."

San sighed. "If only that could happen." He said as he thought about Dean's deal. He'd give up his life to have Dean be okay and not have to go to hell.

Dean looked down feeling guilty at Sam's subtle mention of how he felt about his deal. Dean still didn't regret it though. His father had told him to protect Sammy, no matter what. He was always willing to give his life to save Sam.

"Anyways," Alex continued, "She could have just walked up to the front door and they would opened it gladly."

"Why would it do that?" Sam asked. "Ghouls just feed off the dead, don't they?"

Alex snorted at his question, as if the answer was obvious.

"You guys are hunters right?" She spat.

"Haven't we already been over this?" Dean replied.

"You guys have probably wasted enough ghosts to know how friggin awful the corpses smell. Even ghouls probably get sick of all that rotting flesh, so why not move up to fresher game?"

"Makes sense." Dean said. "And acting like the dead chick would have been the easiest way to get to the family. Gain their trust and then take bite."

"We should talk to the neighbors and see if they found anything." Alex suggested. Dean nodded.

"Yeah, Sam and I were planning on doing that when we finished up with the house. You know, before we ran into an amateur."

"Excuse me? I've been hunting almost as long as you have. What makes you think you're better than me?"

"Well going by all the scars you have all over your arms, I'd say you've had your fair share of fights. And it looks like you didn't always come out on top."

"Oh, like you've never had bad days! I'm sure you're just the perfect little hunting duo!" She turned her gaze toward Sam. "What about you Sam? I bet you've never had any problems, right?"

Sam tilted his head at her with a twitch of his lip. He was reminded of all the time he'd been kidnapped by demons, ghosts, and even people. Supernatural crap just seemed to follow him everywhere.

Dean huffed out a breath, but it was more like a regretful sigh. "Look, Alex, yes Sam and I have had our share of problems, but we've always been there to look out for each other. We've got each other's backs, but nobody's looking out for you! What happens when you're cornered one day, and no one's around to help?"

"Then I'll die! That's what hunters do, Dean! They save a couple people, gank a few monsters, and then they die! It happened to my father, your father, and one day, it'll happen to me and you too!"

Dean scowled, knowing that his end was coming way too soon. He stood up and started to head towards the door. Sam went after him.

"Dean, where are you going?"

"I'm gonna go talk to the neighbors, see if they saw anything."

"I'll come with you." Sam protested.

"No Sam, someone's gotta stay with Little Miss. Sunshine over there, and it sure as hell ain't gonna be me. Not unless you want the hotel room to end up looking like a crime scene." Dean argued. He hated the fact that he had enjoyed her joke earlier.

"Fine. I'll see if we can figure out where it might go next. Just be careful, Dean."

"I'm not the one hanging out with Debbie Downer over there. You be careful." He was only half joking, and he set off.


	3. Too Late to Realize

Sam sighed as he closed the door after hearing the Impala race off. He should have figured that Dean would eventually leave him to babysit. He thoughtfully ran his fingers through his hair, planning on what to do next.

As he turned to face the room, he saw that Alex had fallen asleep sprawled over his bed. Sam snorted a laugh. "The girl deserves a break." He thought.

He pulled out his laptop and set it on the desk across from the bed. As the screen came up, the last page he left up popped onto the screen.

"**Recently deceased child's family found slain in home**." The headline read. As Sam was about to close it, to look for information on ghouls, something else caught his eyes.

"Parents found torn to shreds, along with fifteen year old daughter." Below was a picture of the family. Sam leaned closer to the screen trying to get a better look the photo.

He saw light blond hair cut in short bangs just above the young girl's eyes. Her smile revealed metal placed along the teeth. Sam's eyes widened as he read the description below the picture.

"Father: Jared Thompson. Mother: Elise Thompson. Daughter: Alex Thompson."

Sam jumped out of his seat and began to dig in his pockets for his phone. As he flipped it open, he felt a foot collide with his hand, and the phone skittered onto the floor. Sam turned around to see Alex standing behind him, with an amused and wicked grin across her lips.

"I was wondering when you'd figure it out, Sammy. I kinda figured you were the smart one, Dean seems like kind of an idiot."

"Don't." Sam growled.

She cocked her head at him, still smiling. "C'mon, Sammy, if he really was all that smart, would he have left you alone with the very thing you were hunting. Don't worry though; I'm sure he'll figure out his mistake once he finds his little brother, dead."

Sam's nose flared, but he didn't flinch. The idea of his own death didn't scare him, but the thought of Dean finding his body did.

"Or," she teased, "Maybe when I'm done with you, I could walk around with that nice body of yours, and string Dean along until he finds out what I am. Well, at least long enough for me to eat him."

That set Sam off. He lunged forward swinging his arm toward her. She dodged the punch and grabbed his arm with superhuman strength. As he tried to tug it back, he received a series of kicks to the stomach.

He felt the air get forced out of his body, and he fell to the ground as he tried to get a breath. He curled instinctively and wrapped his arms around his stomach and coughed harshly.

"Well, this has been fun." Alex taunted as she towered over him. "Now we can't have Dean walking on us, so whaddyou say we take a little trip somewhere else?"

Before Sam had a chance to open his mouth to protest, he saw a foot head to his face. He felt a short yet sharp pain, and then everything went black.

* * *

Dean approached the house, fake badge hidden inside the pocket of his cheap looking suit. Dean tugged at the collar, despising wearing the things.

"_Guh, I feel like a two year old dressed up for church."_ He thought to himself. He knocked on the door of the worn down house. After waiting a few moments, the door swung open to reveal a scrawny, dorky man. Dean sighed. He was secretly wishing for a hot firl to chat it up with, but of course he had no such luck.

"Can I help you?" The man's voice was timid. He pushed up his glasses to the bridge of his nose.

Dean started pulling out the badge. "Yes, I'm with the FBI, and I'd like to ask you a couple questions about the incident with your neighbors." The man's eyes widened and he visibly gulped.

"I'm not in trouble, am I?" His voice quivered.

"_Man, this guy has never gotten laid once in his life." _Dean thought.

"No, it's just policy that we ask if the neighbors have heard anything." Dean explained. The man let out a sigh of relief.

"Well, like I told the cops," he began," I didn't hear or see anything. I was upstairs watching a Star Wars marathon."

"Yup, definitely a virgin." Dean confirmed in his mind.

"It was a real shame though. They were a real nice family. They kids were real sweet, especially that Alex girl. She always came over when her mom made cookies. Grant it, I couldn't eat half of them, I got a peanut allergy. Seriously sometimes, my face just blows up and-"

"Wait, what was her name again?' Dean interrupted in disbelief.

"Oh, the girl? Alex." He said.

Dean felt panic starting to creep in.

"Was she about fifteen? Blonde hair, blue eyes, glasses, and braces?" Dean asked, dreading the answer he was sure he'd get.

"Yeah, that's her." The man confirmed. Dean's heart sank. _"No wonder I didn't like her. I knew there was something off about her!" _Dean scolded himself for not realizing it sooner. Before he reprimanded himself anymore, a frightful thought occurred to him. _"Oh crap, Sammy!"_


	4. Lost and Found

Sam slowly opened and the first thing he felt was pain. First and strongest pain was in his head, where Alex had kicked him unconscious. The next was in his stomach where he had taken several hits. Then there was a new pain, as he felt ropes digging into his wrists and feet. He pushed himself up as far as he could, and noted that he was tied to a table in an old, abandoned barn.

"How is it that every friggin town has at least one creepy, old building? It's like an invitation for supernatural freaks saying 'Hey look, this is a swell place to murder someone! Kick off your shoes and come on in!'". He thought to himself and set his head back on the table.

He pulled at the ropes, not surprised to find that they had no give. He didn't even think about if he had a pocket knife with him. What was the point? He couldn't reach even if he had had one.

He sucked in a breath and his chest heaved as he whispered to himself, "I'm screwed."

"Yeah, you really are." A snarky voice called from the corner of the barn. Alex, well, what he now knew was a ghoul, stepped out of the shadows. "I hope you enjoyed your rest. I could've started on you anytime I wanted, but I thought it would be much more fun to have you awake for this."

Sam watched her toy with a long silver knife as she spoke. He was scared, but he knew better than to let it show. He felt his breath start to quicken, and he swallowed attempting to calm himself down.

"What do you want?" Sam asked, trying to do anything to stall her, hopefully until Dean could find him.

She chuckled and ran a finger along the edge of the knife.

"It's obvious isn't it?" She leaned in close to him, her face looming right over his. "I want blood."

Sam hadn't expected what she did next. Alex took the knife and suddenly slashed his arm. He cried out as he felt the cold blade sink into his skin. He suppressed a groan as he felt the blood trickle down his arm.

She stroked one of her fingers along the wound, picking up the blood on her finger. She slowly licked the blood off and closed her eyes at the sweetness of it. She sighed happily, letting the warm liquid drip down her throat.

"How'd you get away with all this? How come no other hunter has found you yet?" Sam asked, ignoring the fire in his arm.

Alex looked down at him, all innocence he had once seen in her was gone.

"Remember that little 'theory' I had about the ghoul using the dead girl's body to get to her family? Well, it was all true. The best kinds of lies always seem to have quite a bit of truth in them. Those poor saps were so desperate to see their daughter again; they let me right through that door. Little Alex had the best reaction though. She was so happy to see her big sister. So much hope in those pretty blue eyes. I enjoyed watching it die while I made her watch as her big sister snacked on her parents."

Sam bucked against his bounds in a heated rage.

"You bitch! How could you kill a girl like that?!" Sam shouted at her.

"Well, I couldn't have her telling everybody that her dead sister showed up and then ate her parents. People would think she was crazy." The calmness in her voice made Sam all the more furious. "They would have locked her up. It wouldn't have been much of a life. What was it Dean said earlier? 'I'd be doing her a favor by killing her.'"

Sam breathed heavily and kept staring her down. She smiled down at him and began to slice into his chest. Sam's muscles tensed as the blade dug into his flesh. She carved it into him slowly and continued her monologue.

"Anyways, I've lasted this long by pretending to be one of those abominations you call hunters. Then if I run into one, I'll tell them that I had it covered, and then they'd leave me alone."

Sam grunted as she kept dragging the knife across his chest. He closed his eyes as he tried to ignore the pain, even though he began sweating in the cold.

"But" she continued, "I'd made the mistake of saving Alex for last. I mean sure she tasted the best, and I really did enjoy hearing her beg her sister to stop; but as soon as I was done with her, I got stuck with her body."

"Why couldn't you just go back to snacking on some dead guy? Or are you just too above it?" Sam huffed, as his voice shook.

Alex's cocky smile turned into a glare. She quickly stabbed the knife into his other arm. Sam screamed and gritted his teeth at the sudden pain.

"I suppose I could have," she explained as she harshly twisted the blade, and tore it out of his arm. Sam cried out again, although he tried not to. "But once you get the taste of fresh meat, it's not too easy going back."

Alex turned the knife in her hands, and brought it up to her mouth. She licked off the dripping red liquid.

"Once I'm done with you and your bother, I can start this cycle all over again. It's a perfect system. This is pretty much the only bump in the road I've ever had, but it'll all be over soon."

"How's this for a bump in the road?" A familiar voice called from the shadows. The next sound was a gunshot ringing throughout the barn. Sam felt blood suddenly spatter on his clothes and face. He heard a thump as Alex's body fell to the ground, with a bullet at the centre of her head. Well, what was left of it.

"Dean." Sam breathed out, relieved.

Dean hurried over to his brother, and started undoing the ropes.

"How'd you find me?" Sam asked as he sat up with Dean's assistance.

"I figured that there weren't a lot of places she could go where no one would walk in on her. I remembered passing this ugly place on our way in and I thought "Man, that looks like the place to go if you're planning on killing someone."

Sam snickered briefly, but then winced as the movement caused an ache in his bleeding chest.

"You alright, Sammy?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, it's not that bad. Pretty nice timing there, Dean." Sam looked up gratefully at his brother.

Dean chuckled. ""A minute later and you would have bit the dust. Well, technically she would be doing most of the biting." Dean smiled cockily at himself.

Sam huffed out a small laugh. "Jerk." He snorted.

"Bitch."

* * *

Thanks for reading guys! I'm much more proud of this story than my first one. I hope you guys liked it. Let me know what you thought!


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